'''Marcel Moore''' (19 July 1892 – 19 February 1972), born '''Suzanne Alberte
Malherbe''', was a French illustrator, designer, and photographer. She, along
with her romantic and creative partner Claude Cahun,
was a surrealist writer and photographer.[1]

Moore was
born Suzanne Alberte Malherbe in Nantes, France on 19 July 1892,[2] and studied
at the Fine Arts Academy in Nantes. In 1909, at age seventeen, Malherbe met
fifteen-year-old Lucie Schwob and began a lifelong artistic collaboration.[3] Malherbe's widowed mother
married Schwob's divorced father in 1917. Curator Tirza True Latimer has
theorized that this step-sister relationship not only encouraged the young
ladies' creative collaborations but also diverted attention from their lesbian
relationship. Between 1920 and 1937, they lived in Paris,
where they became involved with the surrealism movement and contributed to
avant-garde theater activities.[4] They took gender-neutral pseudonyms: Malherbe became
Marcel Moore, and Schwob became Claude Cahun.[5] Cahun described Moore as "''l'autre moi''" (the other
me), and they remained together until Cahun's death in 1954.

In her early twenties Moore worked as a graphic
designer, producing ornate illustrations influenced by the japonism trend
and the Paris fashion scene of the 1910s. Her modern
fashion designs were published in the newspaper ''Phare de la Loire'', owned by
the Schwob family. She also collaborated with the poet
Marc-Adolphe Guégan, producing illustrations for two of his books:
''L'Invitation à la fête primitive'' (1921) and ''Oya-Insula ou l'Enfant à la
conque'' (1923).[6]

Marcel Moore is best known as Claude Cahun's collaborator. Cahun's photographic
oeuvre, all but forgotten for a few decades, was rediscovered in the 1980s and
interpreted as a predecessor of Cindy Sherman's theatrical
self-portraits.[7] However, recent scholarship suggests
that Moore was not only a muse but also had an active hand in the creation of
some of Cahun's best-known works. In an essay for the 2005–2006 exhibition
''Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore'' at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle,
curator Tirza True Latimer argues that Claude Cahun's own photographs are not so
much "self-portraits" as collaborations with Marcel Moore.
At times, the women photographed each other posing alternately in the same
tableau. Moore's shadow is visible in some photographs of Cahun, making visible
her own role behind the camera.

Moore illustrated Cahun's creative writing on several occasions. For Cahun's
1919 poetry volume ''Vues et visions'', Moore created pen-and-ink illustrations
similar to the decorative style of Aubrey Beardsley.[8] Moore was the
subject of Cahun's dedication, "I dedicate this puerile prose to you, so that
the entire book will belong to you and in this way your designs may redeem my
text in our eyes." In 1930 Cahun and Moore published a second book of verses and
illustrations called ''Aveux non avenus'' (translated as "disavowed
confessions"). Moore's illustrations for this work consist of collaged images
assembled from her many photographs of Cahun, dealing with many of the same
themes of identity that are can be read in Cahun's own photography and poetry.

In 1937 Moore and Cahun
moved from Paris to Jersey, possibly to escape the increasing
anti-Semitism and political upheavals leading up to World War II. They remained on the island of Jersey when German troops invaded
in 1940. For several years, the two women risked their lives
by distributing anti-Nazi propaganda to the German soldiers.[9]
Despite having reverted to their original names and introducing themselves as
sisters in Jersey, their resistance activities were discovered in 1944, and the
women were sentenced to death and imprisoned. They were saved by the Liberation
of Jersey in 1945, but their home and property had been confiscated and much of
their art destroyed by the Germans.

Claude Cahun's health suffered during
her wartime imprisonment; she died in 1954, after which Moore relocated to a
smaller home. Moore committed suicide in 1972. She was buried with her partner
Claude Cahun in St Brelade's Church.